Overhead garage door systems are widely used in both residential and commercial applications, and are designed to be operated either manually or automatically through a reversible motor. Overhead garage doors include a series of interconnected door panels that are connected along their longitudinal edges by one or more hinges to provide pivotal movement of the door panels between vertical and horizontal positions as is known in the art. The door panels include a series of roller brackets mounted on opposite sides of the door panels for supporting a series of rollers. The rollers travel in a pair of continuous tracks mounted on opposite sides of a door frame for guiding movement of the door panels between the vertical and horizontal positions.
Overhead garage door panels may include two or more spaced door stiles mounted vertically on each door panel to support various hardware components of the garage door system and to add additional strength and rigidity to the panels. These hardware components may include, for example, hinges for providing pivotal movement at the joint between adjacent door panels, and roller brackets for supporting the rollers that travel within the opposite pair of door tracks. Typically, hinges and roller brackets are attached to the door stiles through fasteners, such as rivets, screws and bolts for example, to provide an interconnection of components that can withstand the load and vibrational forces to which the door panels are generally subjected.
Additionally, the door tracks in which the garage door travels are typically mounted to a door frame through bracket and fastener assemblies. Each door track includes a horizontal track that extends generally parallel to the garage ceiling and has an integral radius section for guiding movement of the garage door between the horizontal and vertical positions, Each door track further includes a vertical track that is mounted generally parallel to the door frame and that forms a linear extension of the radius section which extends from the horizontal track. Depending on the size of the garage door opening and the available overhead room, different horizontal track radiuses are used to accommodate for different installation requirements. That is, one installation may require a ten inch radius on the horizontal track while another installation may require a twelve or fifteen inch radius. Thus, different configurations of horizontal track, i.e., with an integral ten, twelve or fifteen inch radius, for example, must be properly selected for a particular installation. Moreover, the length of the vertical track components may need to be adjusted to accommodate for lowered positioning of the horizontal track and integral radius.
Due to the size and weight of the overhead garage door components, and the general complexity associated with their assembly, overhead garage door systems typically are shipped by the manufacturer to a dealer for assembly at a site by a professional installer. It will be appreciated that the amount of parts which needs to be boxed and shipped by the manufacturer, as well as the length of time required for assembly of the overhead garage door system at each site, is affected by the number of mechanical fasteners included in the overhead garage door system. Moreover, the dealer or installer must carry a greater inventory of parts as the number of unique track components and fasteners in the overhead garage door system is increased.
Additionally, for garage door installations in low head room environments, various additional track components have typically been required. For example, one approach has been to provide dual parallel tracks, one above the other, with the upper track carrying the uppermost rollers of the overhead garage door. The upper track terminates close to the top of the garage door opening and thereby eliminates the need to guide the uppermost rollers below the level at which the curved portion of the track radius begins. Examples of this type of low head room track structure include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,878,529, 4,119,133, 2,966,212, 2,436,006, and WO 96/36784.
Another approach to low head room installations has been to provide dual parallel tracks, arranged side-by-side, with one of the tracks carrying the uppermost rollers of the overhead garage door and the other track guiding the remaining rollers. Examples of this type of track system arrangement include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,379,478, 2,064,470, and 2,045,060.
In yet another approach, as disclosed in Canadian Patent No. 657,377 and U.S. Pat. No. 1,990,870, for example, the requirement for parallel upper/lower or side-by-side tracks has been eliminated through the use of dual radius tracks mounted integrally on a corner bracket. The corner bracket includes a primary track radius that joins the horizontal and vertical track components, and an integral, auxiliary track radius that terminates near the top of the garage door opening. The auxiliary track radius guides uppermost rollers of the overhead garage door while the primary track radius guides movement of the remaining rollers between the vertical and horizontal tracks.
With this known approach, however, the primary and auxiliary track radiuses are not separable from the corner bracket, so the primary track radius cannot be used without the auxiliary track radius in normal head room installations. Moreover, in this known approach, use of the dual radius corner bracket requires the rollers extending from the side edges of the overhead garage door to be placed in a special staggered arrangement, or auxiliary rollers to be mounted to the side edges of the garage door.
Accordingly, there is a need in the overhead garage door industry for a connection system that provides rapid interconnection of garage door components in the field with a reduced number of mechanical fasteners to accomplish the interconnection. There is also a need for a connection system that is relatively easy to manufacture without requiring formation of complicated mechanical fastening structures on the individual garage door components. Moreover, there is a need for an overhead door system that is modular and easily configurable to accommodate for different door opening sizes and low head room environments.